In a bid to grab a larger slice of the leisure market pie, Jet

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Airways is going all out. The airline is collaborating with several state tourist departments to offer special travel packages. For instance, Jet Airways has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Karnataka State Tourism Development (KSTDC) to offer Golden Jet Escapes on Golden Chariot, the luxury tourist train of Karnataka.

Under the Golden Jet Escapes package, Jet Airways will offer a flight to Bangalore from metro destinations across India and international destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Toronto, London and Brussels. The onward journey on the Golden Chariot, the luxury train that covers tourist destinations such as Kabini, Mysore, Hampi, Belur and Goa in seven days, will be taken care of by KSTDC.

On the international sector, such as London-Bangalore-London Golden Jet Escapes, an economy class package is priced at $3,217 for an individual on a twin-sharing basis. Similarly on the domestic sector, such as Mumbai-Bangalore-Mumbai, the seven-day package in priced at Rs 1.20 lakh. The Golden Jet Escapes offer will be valid till March 31, 2010.

Last month, Jet Airways had entered into a similar agreement with the tourism department of Kerala to offer ‘Jet To Kerala’ holiday packages. Going forward, the airline is also looking at having a tie up with Andhra Pradesh’s tourism department to offer special packages to Tirupati and other destinations in the state. Rajasthan too is on the radar among other popular tourist destinations in India.

Sudheer Raghavan, chief commercial officer of Jet Airways, said, “These initiatives give us an opportunity to project ourselves across the world as a premium carrier that offers leisure packages. Such tie-ups with premium brands such as the Golden Chariot is the way to go. We have a similar tie up with the Kerala government, where under ‘Jet To Kerala’ scheme, we have already sold 1,300 packages in a month.”

The ratio between corporate and leisure traffic in Jet Airways is 75:25. With the downturn impacting corporate traffic, Jet Airways is now aiming to increase its ratio of leisure and ‘Visiting Friends and Relatives’ segments. Girish Nair, area general manager (Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh) of Jet Airways, said, “We want to create new consumer segments outside our core focus that is the corporate market. Leisure market is a big opportunity for us and this is one strategy of sailing through difficult times.”

Meanwhile, Jet Airways is launching flights on Mumbai-Riyadh and Hyderabad-Dubai routes in August. The airline is also launching Bangkok-Gaya-Varanasi flights besides increasing frequency of flights to Singapore and Bangkok.